


Better Than This (You Left Me Alone)

by Louffox



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Hunters of Artemis, Loneliness, Religion, Sad with a Happy Ending, You Have Been Warned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:28:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22545556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Louffox/pseuds/Louffox
Summary: "You're going to die tomorrow."Grizzop and Sasha talk about life and death, loneliness and family, faith and trust.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 28





	Better Than This (You Left Me Alone)

**Author's Note:**

> Literally wrote this on my phone in half an hour at work because the plot and lines hit me like a train out of nowhere. It's sad. And unbeta'd. Godspeed

"You're going to die tomorrow. "

Grizzop was there. Just as she'd last seen him, sans the blood. He still had a bit of dirt on him, his bow in hand, fight fresh and realer than anyone actually real. His eyes were bright as life, and Sasha hurt inside as she reconciled this with what she knew to be true. That he wasn't alive. Grizzop was dead. For nearly forty years.

She clung to the light of his eyes anyways, wanting to reject her reality. She hardly noticed herself- she looked just as she had when they'd fought together, still fresh fled from tunnels and gangs, scarred but young, strong, fast.

"You're really here," she said, and the words made her heart ache in a way that was both full of good happy love and wretched loss. He was there. It was a dream, but he was really there. Not a dream of him, not something her subconscious had thrown together. She had dreamed of him before, many times, and it had always seemed real, but now she could see how those were nothing compared to this. She'd never come close to doing him justice. He was actually there. "But you died."

"Right. But it's not the end, because I followed Artemis. Now I'm in the eternal hunt. And that's why I'm here right now. You're going to die tomorrow, so you need to follow Artemis and then you can join me in the hunt."

"I... what?" She was distracted, wanting to just drink him in. It had been so long since she'd seen him, and she had made herself a new home, a new family. And she loved them all so much, the third and final iteration of a family- first being Barret and the gang and her blood family (or better, _bloody family_ ), second being the mercenary group, and this third. She missed the mercenary group, but she'd moved on, learning and loving as best as she could. Turns out, she was pretty good at it, if the size and loyalty of her family was anything to go by. Weird.

"Pay attention! I'm in the eternal hunt, and it's wonderful and perfect, and you need to be here too. And you're about to die, so you've got to swear yourself to Artemis," Grizzop explained, impatient as ever.

"You weren't supposed to die. You left me here alone. You went after that guy and left yourself open, you took my damage- I found out what you did, the folk I talked to said you did a prayer called 'Paladin's Sacrifice'. _Sacrifice_ , Grizzop. You left me."

"I didn't leave you-"

"What did you think the _Sacrifice_ prayer would do?" Sasha snapped, exasperated.

"Honestly, I thought I could beat it. Beat them. I really thought I could do it, I thought I was good enough." The honesty in his voice was clear with his own exasperated tone. "I didn't mean to die. I meant to win. And I'm sorry I wasn't as good as I thought."

"You said we were going to get out of it."

"I didn't mean to be a liar. I didn't mean to leave you alone. I didn't mean to leave you to Rome. And I didn't mean to die." He was still talking with his teeth bared, snarling out the words like an unwilling animal being dragged through the brook, but it was so much more than just being dragged through the mire, because he was crying now. "But I'm here, right now, and this is our chance. Your chance. You can join me."

Something he'd said was finally starting to sink in. "Did... wait, you said... I'm gonna die? Tomorrow?"

"Yes. Artemis gave me permission to come to you. Because you're amazing, Sasha, you're absolutely incredible. You know that? Artemis agrees. And she wants you to swear your life to her, so you can be welcomed to the eternal hunt. You'll love it, Sasha, I swear you will."

Sasha looked around their location for the first time, noticing where they were. Their location appeared the moment she looked around- before they had been nowhere, but when she thought of where they were, there they were. On the roof- the highest one on the tower her office sat in. It was, or course, her favorite place. Looking around, she could see the other buildings- the cabins, the mess hall, the weaponry, the indoor combat training area and the outdoor one, the range for throwing knives and archery.

She had needed to hire someone to teach archery. Her first choice was buried beneath the ruined city, just another victim of their own hubris, albeit leaking green blood into the thirsty soil rather than red. She was furious at him. He was better than that. He shouldn't have died and left her alone again. He was just as prideful as the rest of the people who'd been buried in that city, another contribution to the mistakes made.

"I'm sorry I never got to teach you the bow. But... we have another chance. You could be a huntress."

"Why does this feel like... selling out?" she asked. "I forgave you, eventually. I'm still mad sometimes. But now I get it- you didn't mean to die."

"I didn't mean to die."

"And we're all dying. I mean, It's... I guess I'm gonna die tomorrow. So it doesn't really matter in the end if you died then or died ten years later. I still would've been alone."

"But we could've had ten years. I know. I'm sorry."

"We could've had ten years," Sasha echoed sadly, shaking her head.

"It feels like selling out because you're used to being alone. You had to escape the gangs and London alone, you had to climb down into the darkness under Paris alone, you always scouted places alone and were alone with your knives and no magic or gods or anything. You were alone after Rome and you did this all, just you. And now I'm here, and I'm offering you a chance to not be alone. This is the theme you've stuck with, your whole life. Alone. Your own strength. Yourself. Relying only on you. And that's brilliant, Sasha, it really is," he said earnestly, the tears in his voice now too. "But you don't have to die alone."

"I have my family."

"They're not dying with you. And you know you're not gonna die in a bed surrounded by kids and friends and family. And even if you did, even if you had a hundred thousand people with you, you still die alone."

"So what do I do?"

"You accept help. You let yourself have someone else. You rely on someone other than yourself. You stop being alone." He held out his hand. "Artemis will be with you. I'll be with you."

She stared at him, and then at his hand.

"You don't have to do it alone anymore."  
"It's okay. You've done enough."  
"You can rest now."

"I don't think I want to be alone anymore," she choked out, voice cracking. _She_ was cracking. She tried to hold herself together. "But I don't know how to not be."

"That's okay. I can help. You don't want to be alone? You won't be. Okay?"

She stopped holding herself together. She stopped holding herself. She stopped.

She let him hold her.

"Okay."

**Author's Note:**

> Meant to be about Sasha trusting Grizzop, not so much evangelical Artemis stuff. I'm sad now whee


End file.
